Bedlam

Andrew Sean Greer

Lesser writers of historical fiction often stoop to melodrama. Hollingshead, happily, does not, though he does resemble the headstrong theatrical producer who buys the costumes first and then is forced to find actors to fit them. But while his storytelling may not be the reason to read Bedlam, his love of language—so carefully unearthing and framing a long-lost time—certainly is.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Canadian Hollingshead (The Roaring Girl) offers a sprawling story based on a contentious historical episode. In 1797, James Tilly Matthews was committed to Bethlem (aka Bedlam), the notorious British lunatic asylum, after nattering on about an "air loom" machine used by villains to control people. But there was more to it; Matthews claimed he was being punished for going on a peace mission to France during the Revolution. Certainly his confinement had not been ordered by John Haslam, the Bethlem apothecary who treated him, nor by his wife, Margaret, who tried for nearly 20 years to have him released. Hollingshead deploys all three as narrators of this fictionalized account: Matthews, who slips in and out of lucidity; Mrs. Matthews, singleminded (and therefore largely uninteresting); and Haslam, whose use of Matthews as a research subject makes his motives suspect. Hollingshead's language slides between the centuries as he tangles with provocative themes: the causes and treatments of mental illness, the battle between service and self-interest in the doctor/scientist, and the ways mad members of society can reflect the chaos of the world outside. A vivid picture of the grotesque patients and sadistic staff of the "English Bastille" adds density to the gallows humor that peppers this brutal story. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Painstaking-sometimes pain-making-exegesis of an illustrious paranoiac's imprisonment in London's Bethlem asylum. This historical novel by Canadian author Hollingshead (The Healer, 1999) suffers from too much history and not enough story. Protagonist James Tilly Matthews, a London tea merchant on a peace mission to France during the Terror, becomes convinced that he is being persecuted by the Air Loom Gang, Jacobin mind-control agents who infiltrate brains and bodily fluids by manipulating a pneumatic machine. Back in England, "Jamie" is ensnared by double-dealing politicians and consigned to Bethlem Hospital (aka Bedlam). His wife, Margaret, spends years trying to get him released, but can't even get care packages or letters past the gatekeepers. After many futile administrative proceedings, reported in scrupulous and deadening detail, Margaret takes their son to Jamaica because she fears repercussions from Jamie's political enemies. Margaret and Jamie alternate narration with John Haslam, the "apothecary" of Bedlam, who has mixed motives for continuing Jamie's confinement. Despite a nasty bedsore, Jamie adjusts to lunatic life, warming to his keepers, especially crusty, pronunciation-impaired Alavoine. He learns the engraving trade in Bedlam, writes Margaret letters that never get past Alavoine, keeps a stenographic log of asylum abuses and contributes architectural designs for the construction of a new Bethlem. A parliamentary inquiry results in Haslam's disgrace and dismissal in 1816, but not Jamie's release. By the end, Jamie is thriving in the 1800s equivalent of a group home, where Mad King George also finds convivial respite. So intractable is Jamie's Stockholm syndrome that, whenMargaret and a contrite Haslam secure his freedom, he balks. Excessive exposition mutes the drama, and readers hoping for lurid scenes of primitive psychiatry will be disappointed. Cerebral entertainment; those with experience perusing dry and dusty tomes may find this worth the slog.